RAILROAD UPGRADES CROSSINGS IN REGION

RANDLES -- State-of-the art, computer-controlled railroad grade crossing signals and equipment are being installed this month at three railroad crossings in southwest Cape Girardeau County. One of the crossings is where a Cape Girardeau man was killed nearly four years ago when his vehicle was struck by freight train in Randles.

The new grade crossing equipment is the first of its kind to be installed in Southeast Missouri, state officials said. The new warning signals should be operational before the end of the month, according to the Missouri Highway and Transportation Department.

The equipment, signals and crossing gates will be installed at the Route P grade crossing, at the north edge of Randles; at the County Road 272 grade crossing in Randles, and at the County Road 274 (Farmer's Frolic) grade crossing, about two miles south of Randles.

Rick Lamb, of the highway department's project office at Jackson, said technicians with the Southern Pacific Railroad began installing the control equipment earlier this month.

"They've already installed a lot of the equipment, but they won't install all of the mast arms (gates) until all of the electronic equipment is tested and working," said Lamb. "They tell me if everything goes OK they'll have the majority of the work done by the end of the week."

Leroy Meisel, railroad safety specialist with the Missouri Division of Railroad Safety, said the grade crossings are being upgraded with what is known as a constant-warning-time device.

Meisel said each grade crossing installation uses trackside computer circuitry to calculate the speed and distance an approaching train is from the grade crossing before activating the warning lights or gates.

"No matter whether the train is approaching the crossing at 5 miles per hour or 70 miles per hour, the constant-warning-time computer will activate the crossing lights and gates at the same time," he explained. "What this means is that motorists will no longer have to wait at a railroad crossing with the lights flashing and gates down, waiting for a train that's still a considerable distance away and traveling at about 5-10 miles per hour.'

"When the constant-warning-time grade crossing system become operational, it will restore credibility to the railroad grade crossing signals. With the old system, motorists waiting for a slow moving train on one track try to drive around the gates or past the red lights only to be hit by a fast-moving train approaching in the other direction, on another track."

Meisel said each computer-controlled grade crossing will have a backup to its primary operating system. In case the primary system, fails, the backup system will continue to operate the gates and lights. Now, if the main operating system fails, the warning gates go down and the red lights remain on flash until a railroad signal maintainer can make repairs, he explained.

Meisel said the constant-warning-time grade crossings will also have a built-in recorder that will tell the signal maintainer if there has been any problem with the crossing equipment, or if the gates and lights have been operating longer than normal.

In December 1989, Ronald Lange, 25, of Cape Girardeau, was killed when his compact pickup truck collided with a southbound St. Louis-Southwestern "Cotton Belt" freight train. Lange's death resulted in efforts by his family and former Cape Girardeau County Associate Commissioner Leonard Sander to have the crossings at Randles upgraded from the familiar crossbucks to red lights and gates.

In addition, sight distance to the north of the County Road 272 crossing along the railroad tracks was improved by clearing away small trees and brush that hindered visibility of motorists and approaching locomotive engineers.

County Road 274, commonly referred to as the Farmer's Frolic crossing, has been the scene of several grade crossing fatalities during the past 10-15 years.

The most recent occurred in the mid-1980s, when a teenage boy and girl were struck and killed by a northbound train. The pair had pulled their car onto the mainline track to wait for a slow-moving southbound freight train that was on the passing track to make way for a high-speed northbound train coming around the curve.

In addition to the crossings at Randles, Meisel said other Southern Pacific and Union Pacific railroad grade crossings that are scheduled to be upgraded with the constant-warning-time grade crossing equipment, but not funded at this time, include:

- Highway 91 and Rock Avenue crossings in Bell City.

- Stoddard Street, Two MIle Road, and One Mile Road grade crossings, all in Dexter.

- Route Y, (from crossbucks to lights and gates) north of Sikeston, on the Burlington Northern Railroad.

- Wakefield Street, (from crossbucks to lights and gates) and the West Malone (Highway 114) crossing on the Burlington Northern Railroad.

- Butler County Road 629, near Poplar Bluff, from crossbucks to lights and gates, on the Union Pacific Railroad.